Thursday, August 20, 2015

By Richard KirschEvery time Republican candidates for president put forth their Obamacare repeal and replace plans, it's like money in the bank for Democratic political ad makers. In their desperate need to appeal to Republican primary voters, candidates are giving Democrats the same kind of health care hammer that allowed Barack Obama to pummel John McCain into the ground in 2008.

This week Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker came out with a somewhat detailed repeal and replace plan, while Florida Senator Marco Rubio outlined a very similar piece in a Politico column. These plans follow the standard playbook of Republican proposals to reform health coverage, one that Republicans in Congress never actually move forward because they understand the political dynamite they would ignite.

The following are accurate claims that Democrats can make about the Walker plan. Most also appear to also apply to Rubio's, although his is such a sketchy description it's hard to be certain about all of them.

The Walker and Rubio plans would return to the days when insurance companies could deny coverage or charge higher premiums because of a pre-existing condition, charge women more for health insurance than men, and stop paying claims when people have high-cost illnesses.

The Walker and Rubio plan would slash the tax credits that allow families to afford health coverage, driving millions of people back into the ranks of the uninsured. It would replace a tax credit based on person's income with a fixed amount, so that a millionaire would get the same tax credit as a working person who makes $25,000 a year.

The Walker and Rubio plan would force 8 million people off Medicaid immediatelyand then make enormous cuts in Medicaid coverage for families, children, seniors and people with disabilities, hundreds of billions of dollars over the next ten years.

The Walker and Rubio plans would take away health coverage from 3 million young adults who are now on their parents' plans.

The Walker and Rubio plans would make millions of seniors pay more for prescription drugs and visits to the doctor for check-ups. And the Rubio plan would replace today's Medicare with vouchers to buy private insurance.

And here's the kicker that killed McCain: The Walker plan (and it appears the Rubio plan, but it's not clear) would tax health benefits that people get at work.

If each of these statements sound like political poison, they are. For years, opinion polling have found that almost all of the core parts of the Affordable Care Act are politically popular, including with Republicans. In fact, the whole notion of repeal and replace is out of favor with the public. In June, Kaiser found that 27 percent wanted to repeal the law and another 12 percent were for scaling it back, for a total of 39 percent in the repeal and replace category. But 47 percent wanted to either keep it as is (22 percent) or expand it (25 percent). A Bloomberg poll taken in April found that 73 percent wanted to keep the law or include small modifications, while only 35 percent wanted to repeal it.

The relentless Republican campaign to demonize the Affordable Care Act has put their candidates in a political bind, with no escape hatch. With so many people now benefitting from the ACA, Republicans candidates are forced to propose a replacement plan. But it's literally impossible to propose a conservative plan that meets people's needs and therefore is politically palatable. Remember, the ACA itself was a huge compromise with traditional conservative ideas and liberal proposals.

All of which brings us back to the unfolding presidential debate and what the Obama campaign did to John McCain, when he proposed taxing employer health benefits. As Politico reported just before the 2008 election, "Democrat Barack Obama has spent $113 million in health care television advertising so far this year, eight times that of Republican rival John McCain - and investment that polls show are paying big dividends as the election enters its closing weeks."

A typical Obama had ended with the line, "John McCain, instead of fixing health care, he wants to tax it." Another ad showed a clip from a debate between Vice-Presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin in which Biden quipped, "Taxing your benefits. I call that the ultimate bridge to nowhere."

We'll be seeing the same kind of ads in the fall of 2016 from Hillary Clinton or whoever the Democratic candidate is, pounding her Republican opponents on health care. And just as Obama raced to reelection standing up against Mitt Romney's pledge to repeal Obamacare, the third Republican presidential candidate in a row will lose in no small part because they don't get that Americans understand in a very personal way what access to affordable health coverage means for their families.

This piece ran first in the Huffington Post. Richard Kirsch is a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute in New York City. As Director of Health Care for America Now, he led a broad coalition of progressive organizations that were instrumental in fighting for passage of the Affordable Care Act, signed into law in 2010.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The men of ISIS are routinely raping pre-teen women, claiming the practice is condoned and encouraged by their religion!

In case you missed this story in theThe New York Times you have to read it. This is how it starts:QADIYA, Iraq — In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted.He bound her hands and gagged her. Then he knelt beside the bed and prostrated himself in prayer before getting on top of her.When it was over, he knelt to pray again, bookending the rape with acts of religious devotion.“I kept telling him it hurts — please stop,” said the girl, whose body is so small an adult could circle her waist with two hands. “He told me that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God,” she said in an interview alongside her family in a refugee camp here, to which she escaped after 11 months of captivity." Continue reading the main storyThe question now is what can anyone do to stop this abhorrent practice?The Obama administration is already bombing ISIS targets in Iraq. American troops are training and advising the Iraqi army, and the U.S. is arming some Syrian rebels.The only other alternative would be for the U.S. to wage war against ISIS. Putting American troops on the ground there will end up killing thousands of soldiers and civilians. And what will it achieve? We've already seen the mess caused by the wars the U.S. waged in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the end, the situation in the Islamic State will be no better after a war. All we're left with is deep loathing for the rapists who use religion to justify violent sexual acts against young women. We are left with an even deeper sadness. And prayers for the young women who are enslaved and brutalized.

I come down
to the Coast. I take El Expresso to go to Lima, El
Urbanito

to El
Mercado Central, to La Tiendecita Blanca. It is there where our mothers bought Chantilly Creme to
decorate birthday cakes, and still serves butifarras, paltas rellenas, tamales,
empanadas, humitas. Memories jump through the intersection of' Larco and Pardo,
five blocks in diameter, with a rainbow of flowers in its center. Walk to
Schell St. where my school, San Jorge, used to be, then to Porta St. that saw
my growing up years. El Terrazas Club still a block away, looking forward to
its next Carnavales Festival. Would you like to dance? sounds in my head.
Dance? His eyes full of adoration. EI Malecón gives me his cliffs that
roll to the

"Take Hold of Seeing Red With Your Hands, Your Fingers..."

August 7, 2011 “…take hold of this book with your fingers, your hands, your arms. It’s that human.Ricci has not only crafted wonderfully-flawed characters, she has brilliantly painted in the scenery around those characters.” Sandy Prisant, Wordsmith Wars.

"You Forget You're Reading, You Just Feel Like You're There!"

"With a book as artfully written as Seeing Red, it only takes a few pages to become immersed in Ronda’s world. For a time you won’t even know you’re reading; you’ll just feel like you’re there."
--Emily Suess, Suess' Pieces, July 22, 2011

Readers Rave About "Seeing Red"

July 7, 2011

“I finished Seeing Red!!! Great book!! You really have a gift for writing such compelling novels. I couldn't put it down. I loved the whole part in Spain. It made me want to move to another country. GREAT JOB!!!!!!!”

– P.M. Woods, author, Spinning Will

July 6, 2011

“I am having the best experience reading your book. I would love to see the bookmade into a movie. You are a genius, you have amazing talent…write more!”--Ruth Horowitz,Boca Raton, Florida

June 27, 2011

“I just finished Seeing Red this a.m.! The last 100 pages of that book fly! Your leading lady, with the help and encouragement of others, allows all her dreams to come true! I like this buoyed up narrative. Even when you discuss traumatic events, within a few pages, you’ve disentangled Ronda, so your reader knows that it’s her inner struggles that cause her the most angst. So in all, a *nourishing* read! I get the feeling this is somehow autobiographical, at least the son, Jack. And your descriptions are so VIVID. I could see everyone and everything. And as I mentioned the other day, your secondary characters are painted so strongly. They’re all wonderful, and I wish I knew them personally.What makes this book so interesting and worthwhile, is that it is all about reaching personal fulfillment and happiness (imagine fiction doing that)! Even in her darkest places, Ronda comes through for herself and others. You’ve given her (and us) a sense of possibility and resolution. Your work reminds us that, despite obstacles (some quite severe) happy, even celebratory, endings are indeed possible! This is perhaps the HAPPIEST novel I’ve ever read! It made me feel good, and as I said, nourished.”

--Nancy Dunlop, Ph.D., Delmar, New York

June 4, 2011

“I finished reading Seeing Red a few days ago. Thank you for a wonderful story! Ronda is a scrappy heroine with whom many of us can identify. She reinvents herself, with some uncertainty, but with determination, too. Her husband is such a jerk! The oily Enrique is thoroughly detestable, too. Leely and Freida are spirited, assertive ladies who refuse to fit a mold. I know I must now read Dreaming Maples. Keep writing Claudia!”

-- Christine McKnight, Schuylerville, N.Y.

June 1, 2011

“Well Claudia I just got done crying, at 12:30 a.m. after finishing Seeing Red. I stayed up late four nights in a row reading Ronda's journey, and out of all it, it was Jack that got me sobbing. I enjoyed Ronda's journey through Spain, the process of her learning to dance, her friends in Spain, the trip in the caves! I love her driver! I love her figuring out (through Leely) that men have dictated so much of what she thinks about herself. I like that she had a lot of doubts, I never trust characters who have a few paragraphs of doubt and then move on, charging ahead. Most of us revisit our doubts a lot. It's part of the process and you conveyed that well. And I really like that her journey had so many detours. It wasn't just “go to Spain, take on a few hurdles, and voila, the results are in.” It was a lot of detours and I like that. I love the part about the shawl and her dancing, so powerful!!! You really conveyed that transition and the power of the shawl very well. (And I believe a light, flowered shawl is symbolic of being wrapped in love.) Also, I love the party! Wow, what a book!!!”